


Unweaving

by SeaCrest



Series: A Life Unmade [3]
Category: Those Who Went Missing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-09-04 23:04:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16798828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeaCrest/pseuds/SeaCrest
Summary: In which Lyra is torn asunder.





	Unweaving

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted [here](https://www.deviantart.com/seacrest-star/art/Origins-Unweaving-756413291).

The dust and sand and rocks kicked up by the storm meant little to the great shadow that slipped like a ghost through the raging winds, following the spark of life that yet remained in one small figure, huddled alone among the rocks, full of despair and sorrow. A Lost One, a girl who would die from a broken heart as she forgot what it was to be human, who would fade and fall when her body gave out, long after her mind. Was this witch worth saving? A fragile life, among so many other fragile lives. Foolish mortals, who overstepped their bounds and fell victim to their own hubris. But this girl sobbed for her friends, sobbed for her family, all those she could save but had not, and perhaps there was something in her still redeemable. 

Lyra felt the sting of the sand as it flayed her alive, turning her back and letting her clothes and hair veil her face against the onslaught. Blinded by the winds and the sands, her eyes crusted with salty tears and grit, nevertheless she felt a trembling in her very soul, a strange kind of void yawing open at her metaphysical feet, a chasm that beckoned for her to simply let herself fall. _Death is preferable than a life of guilt_ , it whispered, and Lyra leaned closer, letting it murmur in her ear.

 _Little witch, death is not the answer._ The voice was eons old, soundless and toneless and faceless. All she knew was that it was inexorable. _Let me help you._

The Sun Rose held her breath and curled deeper into herself, searching for answers she did not have. The rough stone against her cheek drew blood as she dragged her face across it, wedging her body tighter into the space between the rocks. Was she going mad, then? Was this to be her fate? 

_If I go mad_ , she thought, _let them kill me before I do someone harm_. She pinched her fingers between her teeth, willing the pain to anchor her, but all she could think was, _Let me rest, let me rest, let me rest._

_Little witch, I am trying to help you. Little witch, what will you choose?_ Lyra screamed as something was wrenched from her, something that made Lyra the Sun Rose who she was, something that was inextricably a part of her. She gasped as power drained out of her, pooling at her feet like blood, felt herself fading in the way a shadow fades as the sun rises. _Little witch, stop fighting me._

Lyra panted as she struggled, trying to hold onto the magic that made the Sun Rose the Sun Rose. _You're not helping_ , she thought furiously at the voice. _You're_ hurting _me!_

For seconds, minutes, hours, days - she didn't know how long it was, but she struggled blindly with the unseen force, felt its presence like a vice around her throat. Magic wrapped around her bones, stripping away memories as it fed on her flesh, transmuting her into something--else. 

_Little witch, this is the only way I can save you._

What witch did the voice speak of, and why did she need saving? A ghost wavered, bright copper hair and a shimmering gold crest fading into nothing as witch-power sank into the rocks, turning them to dust as it ripped its way through the nature that had begotten it. Iridescent eyes focused on something without a form, their pupils blowing wide open and swallowing every speck of color and light, until those almond eyes were pitch black. Still the storm howled, raging like a child denied sweets, and still the ghost of what once was clung to the last vestiges of humanity.

 _Little witch, let go._

She felt it like a tearing, searing through her very being, a pain worse than any she had felt before. She had thought that the pain before had been all the pain she could bear, and yet this was worse, and she bore it, gritting teeth that no longer existed, until with a gasp, she lost her grip. She let go, and with that release, the pain vanished, as if it had never existed at all. She couldn't even remember an echo of the pain, just knew that it had happened, like reading an account in a history book of a battle long lost. A fact that had no bearing on the knower, whether they knew it or not, and then she didn't even remember that.

 _Little witch, I'm sorry I couldn't save you. Little witch, I hope this form pleases you._

_Who am I?_ she thought, and the voice answered, _Isa._

_Is Isa a name or a creature?_ she cried, and the voice did not answer.

A memory, a voice. Whose voice? It didn't matter. _They are ghosts of nature, fleeting and variable in temper, powerful and strange. They are called esks, and they haunt the places where they were born, forever bound to that place by magic and memory._

 _I am an esk_ , she thought. _An esk._


End file.
